Skip to content

Pigeonneaux En Compote

A historical recipe from A guide to modern cookery, by Escoffier, A. (Auguste) (1907).

No ratings yet

A historical recipe

A guide to modern cookery, by Escoffier, A. (Auguste) (1907). Project Gutenberg eBook #71395.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

France

Known as a French recipe, with similar versions prepared across other nations.

Ingredients 4 ingredients

  1. two oz. of blanched
  2. two oz. of raw mushrooms
  3. a glassful of white wine
  4. six small onions

Cook safely

Keep children and pets away from the hob and the oven, and keep oven gloves and a lid within reach.

  • Hot oil. Never put water on an oil fire: turn off the heat and cover the pan with a lid or a damp tea towel. Pat food dry before it goes into hot oil, and lower it in gently, away from you.
  • Boiling water and steam. Turn pan handles inward, away from the edge of the hob. Lift lids away from you, and pour hot water away from your body: steam burns too.
  • Sharp knives. Cut on a board that doesn't slip (a damp cloth under it helps), and curl the fingers of the hand that holds the food.

Method

  1. Fry in butter two oz.
  2. of blanched, salted breast of pork and two oz.
  3. of raw mushrooms, peeled and quartered.
  4. Drain the bacon and the mushrooms, and set the squabs, trussed as for an entrée, to fry in the same butter.
  5. Withdraw them when they are brown;
  6. drain them of butter;
  7. swill with half a glassful of white wine;
  8. reduce the latter, and add sufficient brown stock and half-glaze sauce (tomatéd), in equal quantities, to cover the birds.
  9. Plunge them into this sauce, with a faggot, and simmer until they are cooked and the sauce is reduced to half.
  10. This done, transfer the squabs to another saucepan;
  11. add the pieces of bacon, the mushrooms, and six small onions, glazed with butter, for each bird;
  12. strain the sauce over the whole through a fine sieve;
  13. simmer for ten minutes more, and serve very hot.

Plating

Cookware for this recipe

  • Frying pan
  • Saucepan
  • Chef's knife
  • Vegetable peeler
  • Sieve
  • Colander
Source Public domain in the USA
Credit

From A guide to modern cookery, by Escoffier, A. (Auguste) (1907). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #71395 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71395). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.